Picture from Rose Davies

The day before yesterday our sportsmen departed to Beijing for Olympic Games. Shannon has already reported on that but I’ll talk more about the sportsmen and their preparations for the games. For the first time in the history of independent Tajikistan, 14 sportsmen are going to participate in this major sports competition. The last time there were 9 of them. The main goal of the whole Tajik team is to win at least one medal, hopefully the golden one. As far as I know Tajik team never brought medals from Olympic Games, they were attending the games more like tourists than sportsmen. This year they promise to bring with them several medals.

However, an author at Asia Plus doubts (rus) that there will be any success. I also have doubts but I hope that Tajiks can win at least one medal.

14 sportsmen - Is it a big number? Is the quantity going to turn into quality. Not an easy question… Most probably it is not… More than a year our sports officials are talking about successes. All the efforts are made to fulfill the main tasks, that is to support those sportsmen which can potentially become winners. Good! But what about the others? They are financed on leftovers by Sports Committee of Tajikistan and National Olympic Committee. I saw with my own eyes in what terrible conditions they got trained and prepared for the games. I can say for sure that their results are not on international level. Most probably they will bring no medals with them. But this is not their fault. Both of the committees allocated very little resources. Most of the sportsmen received invitation for participation in the Olympic Games very late and had not time for preparations. One of the sportsmen has not participated in any of the championships during the past half a year because of an injury. Is he going to achieve something? I doubt…

Well, despite the doubts of AsiaPlus and others we all wish that our sportsmen can worthily represent our country in the Olympic Games in Beijing and bring medals with them so that we can be proud of them and of our country. Good luck guys!!!